


Miles To Go

by josiepug



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Concussions, Daddy Issues, Drug Use, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, really inadvisable uses of cocaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 13:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13614324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: Tommy has to protect his family, pedophile priests and crazy Russians be damned. And the fractured skull is really only a minor problem.It's the end of 4x04. Now with added hallucinations, angst, and daddy issues.





	Miles To Go

**Author's Note:**

> *waves from the bottom of a very deep rabbit hole* Hi up there!
> 
> I thought I was going to write a little h/c one shot exploring Tommy's thought process between trying to kill Father Hughes and ending up in the hospital. What I ended up with was a 12k stream of consciousness monstrosity that...hopefully isn't too confusing. I guess I really like fragmented thoughts and daddy issues.
> 
> Hopefully you do too?

There was very little that Tommy Shelby did in the course of his working life that could be considered a public service, but killing Father Hughes just might rank up there, Tommy thought as he followed him through the park. He was trailing just a few steps behind, watching the priest stop to play with children along the way.

Tommy had to physically swallow in order to stop himself from shouting at the kids to run away. He traced the outline of his gun through his coat. He needed to stay focused on his task. For some time now, Tommy had felt himself slipping, becoming less rational. He knew why, of course— her face reminded him every time he closed his eyes— but he could not allow it to interfere with his business. There was still more to lose.

Tommy took his chance when Hughes turned into a public restroom. He followed him in, wincing slightly at the damp echoes that announced his presence. Not ideal for an ambush. Still, Hughes was alone and hadn’t served. He might not even be armed, but Tommy didn’t want to take any chances. He held his own gun firmly in front of him as he rounded the corner, walking as quietly as he could manage. 

There, the last stall.

The hairs on the back of Tommy’s neck were prickling, but the place was absolutely silent apart from the unnervingly loud sound of his own coat sliding against the wall. There was no one else here. Tommy waited for Hughes to hear him, to come out and investigate. Although, as the eternal seconds lengthened and Hughes did not appear, Tommy reflected that the element of surprise would have certain benefits. He had never met a man who so deserved to die with his dick hanging out.

Tommy could see Hughes’ profile around the edge of the door now. Two more steps. It was too late for—

Something hit him from behind, and Tommy was going down before he had a chance to register what had happened. By the time his brain told him ‘trap’, he was already being slammed into a stall door. Fortunately, his brain didn’t need to be on top form for his military training to kick in. Perhaps it was less than worthy of the British Army to go directly for the balls. Or maybe quite fitting. He kicked hard, several times. There was more than one of them. He had to improve his odds quickly if he was to have a chance. Even if Father Hughes didn’t get his hands dirty, two on one in a confined space was tough.

Tommy was off his game. 

That was made clear when the man he’d been pounding suddenly turned, twisted his wrists and kicked hard. It was not the kick of a man who spent any time at all behind a desk. Tommy crumpled.

A surge of panic flooded up from his temporarily numbed legs. His mind ruthlessly ran the numbers. If he was unable to get off the ground in the next two seconds, he was finished. One. Two. They were already kicking him. Not men of honour, then. He had to think through this. If—

Something in Tommy’s ribcage shifted and his thoughts glowed with pain for a second. He bit down hard on his own lip to centre himself.

They were using fists not guns. That was important. They did not intend to kill him. A bloody body in a public restroom would raise questions. Tommy needed to know whether this was a warning or a negotiation. There. That was the next step. When they moved to pull him up, he tried to raise his hands, signal that he was willing to go on to the next part of the game. 

 

Instead, someone backhanded him, and Tommy saw stars. So much for that, he though dizzily. Reeling, he grabbed onto something. The radiator. This was punishment then, not torture. That meant—

He was being lifted up by the collar like a rag doll. That meant—

Air whooshed as he came slamming back down. His head collided with the radiator, and then the world exploded in a swirl of blinding light.

When the light released him back into the real world, he had lost some time. Now, he was being held up by his collar. They were going to torture him, right? That seemed like the kind of thing he should remember, but his thoughts were struggling to make themselves heard over the screaming in his head. His brain might be trying to push its way out of his skull. Without warning, the side of his face met cool tile, and for half a second, it was a relief.

Then hands began to push on his skull.

No.

They pushed. And pushed. And pushed. His brain was getting bigger and bigger and his head was getting smaller and smaller and he was jerking like a fish being gutted. He might as well have fins for all the good that grasping at coats was doing. They had to stop at some point. There was no way this could go on. It was too much.

They didn’t stop. 

Over the years, Tommy had become well versed in many flavours of pain, but here was an explored depth of suffering. It shouldn’t be possible to survive this. They were going to break him. They were going to break him. Someone was screaming. If only they would stop the screaming, breaking. He shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the shrieking inside his skull, but he did.

He heard the crunch. 

Like a nut, he thought, and then everything simply vanished.

***

_“Be warned, I’ll break your heart,” Grace said, her golden hair nearly glowing on that dark, dark night. Tommy sat back in his chair, drinking her in._

_“Already broken,” he replied. An invitation. A challenge. He waited for the song. It didn’t come._

_“What about mine?” She asked instead.  
There was a dark red stain blossoming across the front of her dress. Tommy’s mouth opened in horror, but he didn’t have a chance to respond. In slow motion, elegantly, like a dancer, she began to topple off the chair. The blood streamed out of her broken chest as she fell towards him, arms stretched out wide like she was going to fly._

_“No!” Tommy lunged for her. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He had more time. They had more time. This couldn’t be happening. She thunked into his arms, already cold, cold and stiff. And there were other arms too, hands trying to pull him off of her. Tommy fought them wildly, desperately. He didn’t know what would happen if they won except that the darkness was closing._

_“Get away from her, Thomas,” Polly told him. She used unnatural strength to pull him off of Grace. It was only then, looking at her fallen body from a few steps away, that Tommy realised that the blood was actually a pile of ruby red diamonds_

_“I didn’t mean to. I—I didn’t know,” he said, stammering like a child and not caring. Polly’s arms were like a vice around him._

_“How could you not know? You did this to her. It was your curse,” she hissed before throwing him back into another set of arms._

_“You brought the curse,” Esme echoed._

_“How many more of us, Tommy boy? How many more?” Arthur was coming towards him, his face covered in blood, his eyes lifeless. “How many more of us are you going to send to Hell before you’re satisfied?” He collapsed to the ground with a gurgle._

_“Your own family,” said Ada._

_No. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t show weakness. This was for the best. His family didn’t understand. They had to keep going. Keep digging themselves out. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—“ He said, too quietly. He tried again but nothing came out. His voice was gone, blocked by all the blood._

_“Are you happy now, Tommy?” John asked, diamonds pouring out of a hole in his stomach. “I could have been happy with some chickens, but you needed the fucking world.” He too began to fall._

_Desperately, Tommy opened his mouth to try one more time, but before he could—_

_“Ah, leave the boy alone. Tom, my boy, I’m proud of you.” And there was his father, older than Tommy had known him, wading through the corpses of the rest of their family. He didn’t even look at them, eyes only for Tommy. He put his hands on Tommy’s shoulders._

_“My son. Look what you’ve done.” He gestured at the carnage around them, grinning his hustler’s smile. “Never could resist a gamble. Always in it for the big play, the one last bet that’s gonna win you the pot, eh? Like father, like son. Come here now, let me give you a hug.” Tommy tried to push away, but his father held him tight, his fingers crawling over Tommy’s back. No, not fingers, maggots. He was turning into a mass of writhing grave worms._

_“Get off of me! I’m not like you! I’m not like you! I win! I fucking win!” He screamed as bugs crawled into his mouth, choking him, drowning him, eating him alive. There was no air, nothing left, pressed down by diamonds…_

_And then he could breathe again. Tommy gasped. It was a dream, only a dream. He was moving somewhere, in a car. He could feel the motor inside his head. It was very loud. Except it couldn’t be inside his head, could it? _Do you ever stop, you fucking machine?_ But he wasn’t—wasn’t a machine._

_He was in a car. The Red Right Hand. He was on the way to his grave. The maggots had been warning him. God, his head hurt. He wanted to open his eyes. He needed to tell them to shoot him right here and have done with it. Everything was dark and blurry. It was no use. They wouldn’t listen, anyway. Time to wait._

_A second later, or maybe much longer than that, hands were pulling him up._

_“Walk, Tinker!” He heard someone say. He couldn’t see anything. Churchill’s orders. His head didn’t hurt as much any more, but his legs felt very far away. He wondered how that had happened. Left them in the mud in France._

_He was being pulled forward across the field. They had already killed him, were just waiting to dump the body. Why wasn’t he in Hell yet?_

_The arms disappeared. He tipped forwards, falling face first into the grave. Cool, dark dirt rose up to meet him like an old friend. Just him and the Earth and eternity. And this arm. He reached out with his dead hands and felt another body._

_“Tommy?” It said, but that couldn’t be. She never waited for him. She had gone to New York. She had come back. She was here. He could smell her perfume._

_“Grace?” He breathed._

_“Yes, Tommy,” she said patiently, almost laughing at his slowness. He needed to see her again, the sharp line of her nose, her laughing eyes, the way she bit her lip._

He opened his eyes.

“Shelby, why were you attempting to kill Father Hughes?” Grace was gone. He was on the ground, somewhere cold and dark and damp. He tried to raise his head to see who was talking to him. A smooth voice, a liar’s voice. But the moment he moved, the world went into a wild spin and bile rose up his throat. Better not do that yet. He gave up. It was important to pay attention. He needed to listen. His family depended on it. He knew that. There was a disturbing haze where he must know many other things, but that would clear. Listen. Focus.

But he wasn’t doing a very good job because the next second there was a hand on his face, shaking him. Tommy felt his brain move inside his skull and nearly gagged. “Hey Shelby, wake up.” If he opened his eyes, they would stop doing that. First order of business. Painfully, he pried them open. The same blurry space. “Eyes front. Mr. Shelby. You were trying to kill me, were you?”   
Hughes, that face, blurry and distorted. Hughes. The priest who touched children. Who wanted to hurt his family. His business. He had done something to his business. “Passing information.” He was relieved that he remembered that. A distant part of his brain was worrying about that haze. It wasn’t clearing very quickly. Too late, he realised he should not have admitted what he knew. He knew too little. The panic that always came when he didn’t have enough information started in his fingertips. It lost its way around his elbows, but gave him just enough energy to open his eyes properly. _“Think,”_ Polly told him in his head. He knew she was in his head.

“Where am I?” He asked because he knew how to form those words out of the soup between his ears.

“You are among the Oddfellows. Please count from ten to one,” the other man said.

What a stupid name. “Ugh, fuck you.” If they wouldn’t tell him, he would just have to—

A blow to his ribs and his head whipped to the side and his brains flew out into the darkness.

***

_“You think you have control, Tommy Shelby? You think you make the big choices?” Tatiana was straddling him, crushing him with her dark, manic beauty._

_“You go like this,” she whispered, somewhere between erotic and threatening. Tommy felt the cool, familiar touch of the muzzle of a gun against his forehead. His heart rate quickened. “And you think this gives you power. You know what real power is, Mr. Shelby?”_

_She withdrew the gun from his forehead and settled it against her own temple again. Tatiana smiled._

_And then she blew her own brains out._

_“No!” Tommy screamed, but he still couldn’t move. Tatiana’s body fell back against a portrait of Grace, smearing everything with blood, and Tommy still couldn’t move. The house was shaking. There were people shouting outside. The chandelier dropped from the ceiling, shattered. Glass pierced his neck._

_He saw the light._

No, wait, he saw a light. Like one of the ones they use in hospitals. Was he in a hospital? He should be, he thought, though everything was coming back a little clearer than the last time. He thought there must have been a last time. The light was too bright. 

Father Hughes.

The nausea that rose up in his throat was only partially due to his sliding vision. Hughes was towering over him. Helpless. Pinned. His breathing wanted to quicken but the order wasn’t getting all the way to his lungs.

“Whatever else you might have forgotten about last night, remember this,” Hughes said. “I am passing on information to the Soviet Embassy on the instruction of Section D. It’s part of a bigger picture. You explain to the Russians that you were mistaken about me. You apologise to me in front of them.” He was lying. Lying to Tommy because…because he was hiding something. Playing a game. Liar. Bad priest. Confession. Kill him. Tommy pushed the half-baked words away, like cobwebs. Think about that later when it wasn’t so hard. It must get easier.

‘The threat on your sister was evidently not enough. You do as we say, or we will take your son. Here this. We will take your son. We can do it at any moment. We have people in your life…”

Hughes was still talking, but Tommy’s brain had skipped to a stop. They were going to take Charlie. They had people in his life. In his house. They were going to take Charlie. Hughes would touch him the way he touched those other little boys. A spike tried to drive itself through his skull, but he ignored it. He had to do something. He had to warn the family. Make Charlie safe. Nothing else mattered. 

Tommy tried to move, tried harder than he’d tried anything in his life, but not a single muscle would obey him. The darkness was moving up the length of his body, submerging him. One thought followed him down: he was running out of time.

***

Tommy pulled himself out of a dark, muddy pit to the sound of a car rumbling away. It was a relief when it was gone because drumbeat in his brain eased a little bit. Enough to think beyond the sickening pounding, if only just. He should try to figure out where he was. The easiest way to do that would be to open his eyes. He swallowed convulsively.

Think. The inside of his head felt like soup. _We will take your son._ It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. Listen, then. Birdsong. Just before dawn. Gravel under him. Country air. No one else around. He took as deep a breath as he could manage, not all of his ribs in the right places. The least of his worries. A distant part of his brain was already panicking, screaming at him that something was seriously wrong, that he could not do what he had to. He hoped that part of his brain wouldn’t come any closer.

Tentatively, without opening his eyes, he lifted his head off the ground.

He commended his own patience, waiting as the world dissolved and whirled around him, oceans of blackness. When everything was mostly still once more, he blinked open his eyes. The half-light was nearly blinding, but he could tell he was looking up a long drive, a ridiculously long drive. Why did rich people want the road so far away?

This was his house.

He was pretty sure that the stabbing in his head was his body telling him that this was a stupid idea. He should lay here until morning. Someone would come by. Eventually. If he just slept…

He might not wake up. No more time. Charlie, gone.

One more breath. Focus. Walking was not an option. The ground was inches from his face and already that felt too far. He would have to crawl. One arm, then the other. Like in the War.

Right arm. Left. Leg. Leg. His left arm was a little numb. He might have hit it on something. He didn’t remember. The ground was remarkably solid in a swaying world. He refused to look forward. He didn’t want to know how slowly he was progressing. All that mattered was that he keep moving, keep crawling through the dirt. In France, they had laughed about it. Jokes about worms. Crawling out the eyes of corpses down in the trenches.

A shell exploded a few feet away.

Tommy dropped, covered his head. Waited. It was far too long before he realised he’d imagined it. Concussion, right. How long had it been since he’d last slept? You weren’t supposed to sleep with a head injury. 

With a monumental effort, he started to crawl again, every inch of ground covered sending an axe into a new part of his skull. Not even the ground looked steady anymore, so he closed his eyes. Lost in the dark.

He could not think of France. He pictured Grace beside him, but lost the image. He didn’t want her to see him like this. Tommy cast about for something to focus on other than the sharp pain in his head and the dull throbbing fear of failure, but could find nothing. Did he have no thoughts left that weren’t jagged enough to cut?

Charlie. Finn. Ada. John. Arthur. Polly. Michael. The kids. Charlie. 

With every movement, he repeated their names. A prayer spoken to the dirt that reached for him but hadn’t yet taken hold. 

Time passed strangely after that. He stopped to rest several times. He might have fallen asleep at one point, but he couldn’t be certain. Every time he remembered he had limbs, he crawled and said their names. 

It took him so long to register the change to pavement that he nearly slammed his head into the step. He imagined his brain bursting like a melon—too vividly—and nearly retched. No time for that now. Gathering himself, he dragged his failing body up the two steps and essentially crawled up the door. He was slippery with sweat by the time he was steady enough to lean against it. That hidden all of strength—mostly coming from the pure relief that he wasn’t going to die in his own drive after all—was gone.

He stared at the knocker for a second. Or rather, the several knockers that lazily merged and separated before his eyes. He had never used it before. He had a key. He was supposed to have a key. He tried to dig into his pocket only to realise that his left fingers wouldn’t bend right. That was not good. He needed to rest. 

Isaiah said ‘no peace for the wicked’.

He used the knocker. The sound took an unexpectedly long time to get back to his ears. He tried to figure out why that might be, perplexed by the problem. So focused that when the door opened, he very nearly fell across the threshold.

No falling. He couldn’t fall if he just kept walking. That made sense.

Somehow, he managed to turn the collapse into a semi-controlled rush for his study. He tried not to worry about the fact that if his feet hadn’t taken him there, he did not think his brain could have told him where it was. There was work to be done. Charlie.

“Mr. Shelby? What on Earth is happening?” Mary screeched, her voice coming in and out like a bad radio signal. Tommy was too focused on aiming himself for his chair to answer her immediately. Sinking into the rich leather was a blissful experience. He had not thought it possible that chairs could be so comfortable.

“Mr. Shelby? I’ll call an ambulance.” No, this chair was all he needed.

“No,” he said sharply. And then, remembering, “Business. Need a list of household staff and resumes. Water and washcloth. I’m fine,” It was a blatant lie. _We have people in your life._ Mary? He didn’t have time to question trusting her because she was already running off to do his bidding. 

She was back in a single blink, which didn’t seem quite right. He stared blankly at the list she had given him, reached absently for a pen, found a letter in his coat. The blurry memory of Father Hughes woke him up. He struggled to sit up straighter. Too small, look weak. He found that if he closed his left eye, he could sort of read the letter. That was good. Or not good, but acceptable. He wrote out the order to fire former soldiers. Anyone connected to the government. He didn’t look at his hand as he wrote, hoped it was shaking less than it felt like it was and also that the wall wasn’t really being caved in by shovels. He was fairly certain that part wasn’t real. 

“Mary. Deliver these.” She would understand. He hoped. He reached for the washcloth, missed, reached again. His face was covered in mud and blood. Like always. It was showing now though. Had to get it off for the Russians. They kept their blood in their diamonds. 

_“That logical brain of yours ain’t doing so well, is it?”_ His father said from the other side of the desk. Tommy dropped the bowl to the floor. Its shards dug their way into his brain. Already broken. 

“You’re dead,” he said. He remembered that. Shot a deer.

“And yet you’re seeing me. Not a brilliant sign, I’ll admit,” his father said with that smug smile.

“I’m not seeing you,” Tommy said, and closed his burning eyes to make it true.

***

_He was a teenager walking through the door of the Watery Lane house. The smell of horse on him. It had been a long day at the stables. He stretched at the door, pulling off his boots, for once glad that there was no one else in the house. Well, Ada, but she was asleep. Polly and the boys were down at the Garrison with Tommy’s dad. He’d come home, after months without a word, with a big pocketful of cash. He would throw a little party then invest the rest of it in the bookmaking business. That was what he had said. Three days ago. Tommy sighed. It wasn’t worth worrying about. He would go upstairs, check on Ada in the girls room, then go to bed. For better or for worse, Dad wouldn’t be here much longer._

_He walked through the sitting room, lost in thought. “Tom.” A voice from the deep chair by the fire. Tommy jumped, a hand reaching for the gun he wasn’t carrying. A second later, he relaxed. Just Dad, come back early for some reason, dead drunk in the armchair. Tommy took a deep breath, preparing some excuse for why he wasn’t at the Garrison. He didn’t get a chance to use it._

_“Tommy,” his father started again. “Why don’t you love me?”_

_Tommy’s heart missed a beat. Then another. “Dad.”_

_“Come here,” his dad waved drunkenly, imperiously. Tommy was pulled forwards on puppet strings. His dad was squinting at him with his watery eyes, liar’s eyes. “Why can’t you be proud of an old man who’s had a hard life, eh son? Doing well for his family.” He hiccuped wetly. There were tears in his eyes._

_Tommy had no idea what to do. He had never met this man before. Dad was a belligerent, angry drunk, and scheming sober. He did not cry._

_“Arthur and John. They mourn with me when I’m down on my luck and they celebrate when I do them a good turn. They understand. But you just stand there like nothing I could ever do would make you care one ounce for me. How is that fair? I ask you, son, how is that fair?”_

_“Nothing’s fair,” Tommy said and hoped it sounded cold. He should get better at sounding cold._

_Then his father laughed. Not the mocking snigger that Tommy usually got from him, but a genuine belly laugh. “Aren’t you just full of surprises?”_

_Tommy didn’t remember his father ever hugging him before. His arms were clumsy from liquor but strong from the ring. His breath foul but warm. Tommy thought maybe—_

“Sir?”

Tommy jerked out of his seat and made it halfway to standing before he had to concede that he had no clue which direction was up.

He sank back down into the chair, shaken by the dream. A memory, really, though one of many that he kept locked away. If that one had broken loose…

He ignored the sound of shovels against the wall. Mary was speaking.

“…All the former soldiers on the staff. It means there’s only one man left in the house.” Her loyalty was admirable. There was no more time for loyalty. _Family is my strength._ He needed to focus. He had hit his head before. In a few hours, he would begin to feel better, less like the world was tearing apart at the seams, plunging into the depths of Hell. Ever since Grace—focus.

“Mary, I want it so that Charlie is never left on his own. Understood?”

_“Are you sure you can promise that, Tommy?”_ Grace’s voice asked in his head. It was in his head. Don’t look for her.

“Sir, I should call a doctor,” good, sweet, mother-of-Jesus Mary said. She was right, but a doctor wouldn’t keep them safe. Only plans. Only plans would do that. He had to think.

“There will be some men coming down from Birmingham. You put them up in the house. You put them in the front and the back of the house and you feed them and you…” He said, waving a hand. That was her job. His job was to think. Why couldn’t he think? He’d hit his head.

_“Well fucking deduced,”_ I’m a man who drinks tea. Needed to wake up, have some tea. These thoughts weren’t making any sense. Who cared about tea? He lowered his head. Charlie. The Russians. Hughes. He looked back at the note. Handy, really. He might forget, otherwise. He could’t. He had to keep going. Sleep when you’re dead.

_“Are you sure death’s an eternal sleep, son? Seems like a lot to bet your soul on.”_ Tommy squeezed his eyes shut to get rid of the voice. Just another body in the ground. He had to stop the bodies. Drowning under them.

Telephone. He stared at it, tried to force it to resolve into a solid object. It refused, and he gave up, glad that his hand was so good at dialling Arthur’s number. The right one. There was something wrong with the left one. And his head. Mostly his head.

“Hello?” It was embarrassing what a relief it was to hear Arthur’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes, Arthur, it’s me.” Something thick was climbing its way up his throat. He tried to swallow.

“Tommy?’ How long had it been since he’d answered? He couldn’t remember how people told time. It was so…slippery. Like all his thoughts. Slip-sliding into the trenches. No, he had to hold on. This was too important.

“They want…the robbery to be sabotaged…they don’t give a fuck who gets out,” he said. And if he couldn’t get these words out, they’d all be going up in flames. His breath hitched.

“You all right, Tom?” Arthur asked. Fuck. If Arthur noticed, then things were bad. It wasn’t just in his head. He had to get this out of his broken head. Arthur had to understand.

“It’s—It’s the bigger picture, now. Did John make a list?”

“Speak clearer, Tom.” Clearer. _Arthur, I’m falling apart and I’m scared I can’t protect you._

“I said ‘Did John make a list?’”

Arthur’s voice got far away, and it took Tommy far too long to realise he was speaking to John. “Gypsies and kin only,” he confirmed, loud again. 

“Good.” That was all he needed. The thickness in his throat was getting higher. He kept seeing Grace’s green dress out of the corner of his eye. He knew not to look.

“Tommy, can I ask you why?” Arthur’s voice was bleak, like he didn’t expect an answer. Strangely, in that moment of weakness, with the desk pitching like a ship and every muscle in his body tight enough to snap, he might just have explained. But he was certain that if he opened his mouth just then, he would vomit, and that was simply not acceptable.

Better to hang up on his brother.

Once he had managed to tremble the receiver back onto the hook and collapse back into his chair, it seemed like an awful lot of effort to pick it up again. It kept getting further away the more he looked at it. 

_“Spit on your family, not listen to a thing anybody says, but you’ll let yourself get beat by a damn phone. Hell of a way to go out, Tom,”_ his father said.

“Not real,” Tommy mumbled, wondering vaguely who had put marbles in his mouth, but he rocked forwards anyway. Had to have a plan. 

“Hello?” Either the connection was bad or his ears had forgotten how to work. 

“Ada?” He asked, hesitating. Then, another lurch of nausea told him he couldn’t wait for a stronger connection, or better ears, or whatever. Had to get this done. “It’s me. It’s Tommy. Ada, I need you to—I need you to speak to one of your Comrades. And get me a meeting with somebody from the Soviet Embassy—Embassy.” He wouldn’t vomit if he spoke out of the upper left side of his mouth, he decided. “Tonight. Your place. 10 AM—“ Wrong. “—10 PM.” He hung up before she could ask what was wrong. Couldn’t worry his baby sister. 

He slammed the telephone back onto the desk. Next, he should—next he should—

The thickness in his throat had made its way past his defences, and he flung himself up out of the chair before he could think better of it. It was a good thing his hand was on the desk because otherwise he would have lost it in the room’s dramatic spiral. Nothing was solid. It was shear luck that most of the vomit made it into the wastepaper bin.

When it was over, his throat raw and burning, he permitted himself a small moan. No one to hear him. Before, he hadn’t thought it was possible for the pain in his head to double, but here he was. Story of his life.

He retched again, the bile scorching the inside of his throat. He had no idea when he’d last eaten. Monday? He also realised that he didn’t know what day it was at about the same time his left arm began to fold under him.

That was unfortunate. He should stop that. Except—As he was having trouble managing his descent, he decided to change plans. A short rest. Close his eyes, let the spinning stop. Then, he could get back up and continue making Charlie safe. He felt a thrill of fear for his son’s safety. What was he doing? There was no time for rest.

The adrenaline allowed him to lift his head approximately an inch off the floor before the desk turned into a river and whipped him away.

***

_Tommy was standing in the hall, pacing. He could hear Grace beyond, screaming. His hands were twitching. Arthur kept trying to make him celebrate downstairs, wait and get drunk like the men always did, but he couldn’t do it. Had already thrown up a day’s worth of whiskey. Running out of time. He had to—_

_“Please, I have to go in.”_

_“You can’t go in,” Lizzie said from right outside the door. She looked like she was on guard duty. She probably was._

_“I’m your boss,”_

_“Midwife’s boss in there. She says you can’t come in.”_

_“For fuck’s sake.” He slid to the floor. It might have been hours or seconds but then there was a sweaty faced woman, and he was stumbling to stiff feet, plowing through the door and laying eyes on baby Charlie for the first time._

_Grace was sweaty and exhausted looking, but she smiled a big smile when she saw him dart in as soon as the door was opened. She handed him over, a wrinkly, undercooked bundle of small boy._

_Tommy had a big family, and he was no stranger to babies, but this was different. He was perfect, unmarked by the world. He smelled so clean. No blood or grave dirt. There weren’t many things anymore that could make Tommy Shelby smile, but that first sight of Charlie, brilliant blue eyes already judging the world before him, melted his heart._

_“It will be better for you,” he said softly, like a prayer. Still looking at his son, he moved to hand him back to Grace. The hands that took him were too large. Tommy looked up._

_“Thank you for this gift,” Father Hughes said with a sickly smile. He ran one two gentle finger along Charlie’s cheek._

Tommy woke up retching.

Agonisingly, he rolled his face away. His head was pounding and his stomach felt like it had been wrung inside out several times. Blurred vision told him that he was lying under his desk and not as much of the vomit had made it into wastepaper basket as he had originally thought. 

He groaned before he could stop himself.

For some reason, Tommy had assumed that a rest would make him feel better, sharpen him for what he had to do. That, it turned out, had been wildly optimistic. He did not feel any better. Actually, he reflected as he dragged his head a few inches further away from the patches of vomit, he felt a whole lot worse.

_“And to think I always called you hard-headed,”_ his dad’s facial hair was tickling his ear.

“Fuck off,” he told him. Had to focus. Get to the meeting. What time was it? Awkwardly, he fumbled for his pocket watch because it seemed like less effort than lifting his head again. And he could do it with his eyes closed.

At least his thoughts were clearer. Then he realised that he’d just been checking the same pocket over and over again instead of trying the other side. The thrill of fear that came with thinking about being this helpless in front of Hughes allowed him to get the watch out. He waited for the numbers to stop spinning long enough for him to read. 

“Fuck.” Three o’clock. He had been under the desk for four, no five, hours. The time had just disappeared. It had felt like minutes. His head wasn’t clearing.

There was something seriously wrong with him. 

The thought drifted in on the links of the watch chain, significantly less urgent than it should have been. He had to make it to the meeting.

He was not entirely sure how he made it to his feet, but he was certain that anyone who saw how difficult it was would have called an ambulance. Fortunately, he was alone. So much easier to do business when you were alone. To die when you were alone. His knees were buckling in slow motion, and he grasped the desk for support, knocking something over that his failing vision wouldn’t identify for him. 

He couldn’t see it, but he knew the letter was sitting there on the desk. A public execution. How many ways could they bury him? He had to get to the graveyard. No, the hotel. The grave was before and later.

He wasn’t making any sense. Charlie. Finn. Ada. John. Arthur. Polly. Michael. The kids. Charlie. 

His knees slammed to the ground, upsetting his chair with a deafening bang. His ears were ringing strangely. Not that slowly after all. 

He wasn’t going to make it.

That thought, among the soupy muddle that his brain had become, stood out. He couldn’t string a proper sentence together in his own head, let alone convince some Russians that a crazy pedophile was all right after all or persuade some other Russians not to blow up his whole family. He was the one who thought, but his brain was broken.

That started him laughing. He hadn’t heard himself laughing since Grace, but he couldn’t imagine this was how it was supposed to sound. Sort of hollow and hysterical. He didn’t think he could even stand again, let alone make it to London.

Glitzy, dreamy, corrupt London, flowing with opportunity and sin. Sin. London. He stared at the drawer in front of him, waiting for the thought that was coming to weave its lazy way up through his destroyed brain. 

The cocaine he’d confiscated off of Esme. 

It was in the drawer in front of him.

A mass of glittering snow that could keep you awake for days. Tommy wavered. The only time he’d ever tested it, he’d hated the stuff. Too sharp, too fast. His thoughts didn’t need any help spiralling. And yet…

He wasn’t going to make it.

He could feel the certainty of it in the weakness of his muscles, the way his thoughts kept slipping away or tangling themselves up. He could see it in the face of his father, judging him from a comfortable position on the floor even though Tommy told him he was dead. 

He unlocked the drawer, staring at the blurry rows of capsules inside. What was the worst thing that could happen? He could kill himself if his faulty brain miscalculated the dose. The brain that still felt like it was sloshing out his ears. No, not the worst. Worse if he did nothing. Hughes would be angry. He would take Charlie. And then Hughes would—

Tommy lunged clumsily for the drugs in order to stop that thought before it could finish. Shaking fingers clasped around a small blue bottle, and he slammed the drawer shut again. Should he bring more with him? He opened it, took one more bottle, stared at the rest. Maybe—no. He didn’t trust himself not to take too much. His sense of time had never before been so badly distorted.

Every single bone in his body protested as he pulled himself to his feet, with the exception of his head, which was simply trying to float away. He held onto the desk for dear life. It was a good thing it was made of such solid wood. Not like the crates he used to do the accounting on before the War. Lifetimes ago. His shaking hand poured the contents of the bottle onto his hand. He’d seen Arthur and Esme do it often enough. He snorted.

The drug didn’t hit immediately. He stood there, swaying, still clinging to the desk, wondering if somehow he’d managed to fuck it up. On top of everything else.

Then he felt it, cascading down like an egg cracked on the top of his head, washing him in cold, crisp clarity. He sniffed, blinking. Hyper focus. Good. This was what he needed. Meet Hughes. Warn the Embassy. Save Charlie. And he had all night to do it.

Finally feeling like walking to the car might not be the most difficult thing he’d ever attempted, he set off, only a small part of him worrying that this was all the drug. That he was lying to himself. He was always lying to himself and everybody died because of it. Grace was dead. Charlie would—He whipped his thoughts back under control like a horse. He hated whipping horses. They were so much better than humans. Didn’t deserve it.

“It’s London you’re wanting, right, sir?” David asked.

Tommy paused. He was at the car already. Time had compressed again. That was maybe not good. He’d worry about that later. Work to do.

He handed David the paper with the address on it. “Wait outside when we get there.”

“I know it’s not my place, sir, but are you sure you’re well?” 

Tommy was surprised. He felt better than he had in hours, in days. Since Grace died. He reached up and scratched at a patch of dried blood that was beginning to itch. “I’m fine. Just do your job.”

His confidence was slightly undermined when it took him three tries to find the step up into the car with his foot. He didn’t let it bother him. They were off to London. He needed to get there as quickly as possible, do his business, save the family, and get back to Charlie. Preferably before the cocaine wore off. He was beginning to regret only bringing two bottles. It made a massive difference.

***

Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for the trip wore off much more quickly than the drug. Bumbling their way down country roads, he remembered the days when automobiles had felt like the smoothest rides in the world. Today his head protested with every dip or bump.

After one particularly bad jolt, he swore he felt something in his skull move. The sensation forced him to throw a hand in front of his mouth to stop himself retching. The drug, which he could still feel singing through his veins, had distracted him briefly. But it couldn’t take away the real problem. His head was broken, no longer just cracked. Things were slipping out, his blood, his dad. Convinced he couldn’t win. This was the bleak midwinter, they said, and he couldn’t even trust his own head. He shouldn’t have taken the cocaine. Images of Arthur, out of his mind on the stuff, beating men to death flooded through Tommy’s mind. Himself, killing that IRA man with a spittoon, lost. Seeing things that weren’t real. Was that cow by the side of the road real? Was his father who was driving the car? No, his father would never have driven. David, David sitting next to him.

Tommy was losing his mind.

A bead of sweat clung to the tip of his nose, threatening to spill. Everything was too hot and tight and Father Hughes was going to take Charlie and—if only Grace were here. Grace would sing a song and make everything better. What was he, a child? His hands were shaking badly, too sharp and blurred at the same time. Like a damaged piece of film. Silent, too. He was going to fly apart.

This was all the drug in his head. Who the hell liked this feeling?

Did that cow have red eyes?

Paranoia. All soldiers were paranoid. It was what kept them alive. What kept them dying over and over again. 

He had to focus. Couldn’t be like this. Couldn’t let his body win, or his mind, or the Russians. The blood was singing through his veins and his heart was pumping far too fast and he was going to fly into a million pieces like shrapnel through the air, landing in the Cut and sinking to the bottom, shiny golden metals. 

“Sir. We’re here.”

Tommy jerked up, narrowly avoiding slamming his head on the window.

“I want you to wait for me,” he said, feeling like he might have said it before. Father Hughes’ warning was looming large and extra sharp in his mind. Everything else had faded to a background hum. 

_“If you’re going to con someone, stand up straight and do it to their face,”_ his father had said once, or rather John Shelby had said once, while pretending to be a father. 

Tommy realised abruptly that he hadn’t moved, was still sitting in the car, waiting on nothing. Quickly, he heaved himself up and just narrowly avoided face-planting into the gravel. He managed to stumble far enough away from the car that he could plausibly pretend he couldn’t hear David calling after him before he crumpled against one of the arches outside the hotel. Deep breath, then he would continue.

His muscles were falling away from the bone like well-cooked meat. No strength, his thoughts smashing like crystal shards and fragmenting, piercing him. Somewhere within him, the cocaine was still coursing in his bloodstream, but it wasn’t enough. Too slow. Slow got you killed. More snow. Slow. Snow. Slow.

Tommy fumbled for the other blue bottle over the sound of his juttering, repetitive thoughts. 

His hands were shaking so badly it was a miracle he didn’t spill, and it took a worrying amount of effort to bring his hand close enough to his nose to snort. 

The drug hit with stomach dropping force that Tommy tried to harness by pushing off the wall at the same time. His vision broke apart and reknit itself, but he didn’t fall. He was ready for the race.

Horses stumbling and falling, or standing glassy-eyed, hollowed out the drugs their trainers had given them, unable to enjoy their wreaths. Women screaming in a London club, and the sound of metal hitting flesh. The images were sharp and immediate, much closer than this stuffy hotel. Couldn’t dwell. Had to keep moving.

Tommy hunched in on himself and stumbled into the hotel, reflecting that it was a good thing that he had been here before and the staff would already recognise him. He could save his energy for the real work. Like continuing to walk in a straight line.

The cocaine combined with the head injury was having an interesting effect on his senses, he decided. Everything was moving very quickly, in not quite the right ways. Like the inside of his body was clawing at the limits of his flesh cage. It made Frustrating, particularly when he had to do such specialised activities as gripping a pen and signing his name. The hotel manager looked at him expectantly while he rested for a second on their marvellously solid desk. 

His nose was stinging from the damn snow. He wiped at it. His face was numb. Not a great sign.The men at the desk were staring at him. Tommy knew he must look like he was dying. As he pushed himself off the desk with an extreme act of strength, he also knew that this was not an illusion. His head was cracking up, dripping down his spine. The blood clogging his head more literally than after the War. He was drowning downwards, lashing for the shore, stumbling towards the dining room, towards the reckoning. 

When he entered, he remembered to keep his head down, hat pulled low. No need to upset the Russians. Although, mad as she was, Tatiana might even be attracted to it. She would certainly take pleasure in his weakness. He shivered. Not important.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said to the table at large. It was an effort to speak clearly. The words flowed like water in his mind but had to pass through a lot of blood on the way to his mouth. He made it to his seat, under the unsettling gazes of his fellow diners, without passing out, which was quickly becoming the measure for his victories. He lowered himself—not falling—into the chair. “There was a body on the line,” a marginally clever excuse that lost some of its power under the insistent buzzing in his ears.

“Drink, Mr. Shelby?” The idea of whiskey, of numbness to counter to the painful rushing of the cocaine, the excessive speed, the circular, paranoid thinking, was all too appealing. But he knew he couldn’t, that any more liquid would slosh out the top of his head and drown him. He had to keep Charlie safe.

“No, thank you. It was drink that caused half this trouble.” That’s what they thought of him. A drunk tinker punching above his weight. Good enough for now. He hoped, a little wishfully, that he would live long enough to teach them better. At the moment, it didn’t seem very likely.

And now, to bathe himself in their slime. He pushed away the vivid image that sprang to mind, of himself drinking the blood that Father Hughes offered him. A too literal communion. “I’ve come here to apologise,” he gritted out. He needed to get this over with, before he choked and the mist on the edges of vision swallowed him whole.

Of course, Hughes had other plans.

“I have already explained that you now realise that your absurd allegation against me was false,” he said coolly, in that unnervingly reasonable voice. Tommy’s skin crawled and he shivered again. Disgust or fever, he couldn’t tell. 

“Indeed,” Tommy answered. He did not look at Hughes, could not bear to see his leering face that chewed on every lie and insult before spitting them back on Tommy. 

The relish was dripping out as he added, “And that your base nature made you rash.” He was trying to get a rise out of Tommy, prove his beastliness. As hard as it was to admit, he might have gotten his wish if Tommy had thought there was any chance he could stand without passing out. 

Let Hughes savour his victory. For now. 

“…our plan is back on track. When a child in my care commits a sin, first of all he confesses, as you just did,” Hughes explained condescendingly. Even Tommy’s addled mind could sense where this was going.”…And then I instruct him to perform penance in the manner of my choosing. As a child you went to Church?”

Bright light through dirty stained glass. Polly’s hand so big on his own. Coffins and hymns and communions. All of Arthur’s Hail Mary’s and John trying to make him laugh out loud during prayer. Much later, kissing Grace for the first time. Baptising Charlie. Another coffin. “Yes,” he said, holding those things as armour against Hughes’ sneering. He would never touch them. 

“Then you remember the Act of Contrition?”

Tommy nodded, trying to keep his mind on those memories, away from the humiliation and the pulsing fear. The nod was a bad idea, the world cartwheeling away from him so quickly at the movement that he missed a few words.

“…words of the Act of Contrition?” The words. He knew all the words. How he’d learned to read. His mother and Polly, taking turns with it when he was a child. Contrite for stealing things, for hitting someone, for hating his father. For getting a metal, not for killing a man. It had been so long.

“Yes,” he hoped he did. Or he didn’t know what Hughes would do. Bad Catholic gangster. His thoughts were pooling at the base of his skull where he was having difficulty accessing them. The cocaine was telling him to move faster, get this over with. He had places to meet, people to be. He wiped some sweat off his upper lip.

“As your penance, I would like you to recite it now, in the presence of our associates,” the oily voice told him. 

As if the Russians cared. As if this wasn’t a game he was playing with Tommy, as sinister as the ones he played with his altar boys. Not Charlie. The words were in there somewhere. Hughes couldn’t truly profane them.

Tommy took a sip of water, hoping it would clear his head. It was cold and gone too fast. Too much blood for it to handle. Never get clean. The water was going to boil in his stomach. He was so hot, already burning. A Hell before the final one. He tried to loosen his collar, aware of the eyes trained on him from all sides. Surrounded by the enemy, he surrendered. He began:

“Oh my God, I am heartily sorry having—“ He barely had time to be relieved that the words were coming out at all before Hughes cut him off.

“Instead of ‘God’, say my name. Since it was me you offended with your false allegation.” Tommy thought his jaw might break he was gritting it so hard. What was one more bone anyway, that complete and utter bastard? When they met again in Hell, Tommy would take great pleasure in watching this man scream. Later, though. For now, he had to roll over, show his belly, pretend submission.

_“Oh, so playing weak is a strategy now, son? I do have to say, you’re very convincing,”_ his father said from the seat next to him. Ignore him, ignore Hughes, keep talking. They were just words. Just words that meant nothing. He was talking to himself like he was a spooked horse.

_I am a horse._

“Father Hughes, I am heartily sorry that I have offended you…because of your just punishment but most of all because they offend you—“ A blinding stab of pain split his head down the middle, white lightning threatening to steal the world away. He could feel his hands trembling under the table. It was a good thing that these words were already burned on his tongue or he wasn’t sure he would be able to remember them. “—Father Hughes who are all good and deserving of my—,” another stab and he couldn’t keep the pain off his face. Weak. “—deserving of my love. I firmly resolve to…resolve to, with the help of Your Grace, to sin no more and to avoid all near occasions of sin.” The words were blurring, falling deformed out of his mouth. His head was going to explode. He wanted to kill Father Hughes, but he seemed so far away. This was only part one, he reminded himself. There was more he had to do…he had to…with the help of your Grace…Grace…

Help me…Grace.

He didn’t know why he looked up, was mostly past making reasonable decisions. It certainly wasn’t to see a friendly face. Even Tatiana’s diamond sharp edges were blurred by his failing vision. Their eyes met. He couldn’t tell what her reaction was, not that it mattered. She played no part in the rest of his life—his plan. Tonight.

His thoughts were dripping now, too slow. He reached clumsily for a glass of water. Stage two. Or three? Next. One thing at a time.

“Now that we are a united band once more, perhaps we could order some food,” Hughes said. Even dinner sounded sinister coming from that mouth.

“I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well. I have to go. Good night,” Tommy said around the bile rushing up his throat at the very thought. Hughes and food, both were equally distasteful at the moment. He heaved himself up, unsurprised by the way the world gave a watery shimmer from so high up. He could not stumble, or the wolves would come for him. 

“Mr. Shelby—“ Grace said. She didn’t want him to go. No, Tatiana, not Grace. Grace was already gone. He had to go. Too slow. As soon as the too heavy door slammed behind him, he started digging through his pockets. He found the blue bottle again, but it was empty.

Right. Fuck.

It was just him now. And it probably wasn’t the drugs making the pattern on the rugs rise up and twine around his ankles. Concussion. There had been a cracking sound, and his fate had been sealed. He was falling apart.

Already broken.

“Sir—“ The hotel manager said, but Tommy ignored him, too busy kicking through the carpet brambles. If he stopped now, he would never keep going.

His man was waiting for him outside with the car.

“Thank you…” the man’s name had slipped out his head and been swallowed by that nasty carpet. “Take me to—to Ada’s,” he didn’t know her address either. Men posted outside day and night. Meeting with the embassy. Tell them about the robbery.

The man had to help pull Tommy into the car, and he was too busy holding onto the precious information in his head to be embarrassed. Hold it carefully and don’t let it slosh out. 

“Sir, forgive my impertinence, but you need to be in a hospital. I can take you—“

“Not yet. Ada,” he would have to relearn how to say sentences before he met with the Russians. Couldn’t worry Ada.

The hospital. Promising.

_Freddie’s hand, so weak and sweaty. Too late by the time they got him there. Tommy was paying. Ada was crying._

_“You told me…” his dying best friend wheezed, “…you told me that you do what you do…for them…your family. Prove it.”_

_Prove it. He had not done it well enough. Already broken. So many coffins. He could see their faces through the lids, frozen in betrayal. Danny, Freddie, countless young men whose names he did not even remember, Wood Gun Boy. Grace, always Grace. His father._

“Tommy, we’re here.”

He jerked up. He was late to a meeting with the dead. No, with the Russians. Going to blow up the train. Hold on. Hold on.

“Leave me here.”

“But sir—“

“You’re done.” He needed to be alone for the final part. He was always alone. That was the way it should be.

It didn’t occur to him until after the man—David, he remembered suddenly—was gone, that he should have had him wait until Ada opened the door. It was a struggle even to lift the knocker. He held onto the railing for dear life. Too slow, everything was oozing around him, the night thick and syrupy. He could feel the dirt reaching for him, calling him back to its embrace.

He needed to speed up. More cocaine. He wasn’t going to make it without it. And he could do with a little more paranoia just about now. A disturbingly large part of him was arguing that he should just lean against this pole for the rest of time, and he was too slow to come up with a counterargument.

He was thinking about sliding all the way down to the welcoming dirt when the door finally opened.

Some perverse instinct of his made him move again, propelled him off of the pole and past Ada. Maybe she would have some cocaine.

“Oh my God, Tommy!” Clearly, he’d failed at not worrying her. Not that important. He needed to focus. Next step. Plan. Right. Left.

“Are they here?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have cocaine?”

“No!” She was angry. Right, Esme had the cocaine. Ada had the communists. It was all so complicated. 

And the floor was moving so unpredictably. More carpet brambles. He clung to the walls, pushing himself along on momentum alone. He could vaguely feel Ada hovering behind him, worrying. He shouldn’t let her worry.

“Tommy…” When had her voice gotten so piercing? They had to be quiet in case the enemy heard them. Or, no…

“‘M fine, Ada,” he said, and it would have been more convincing if his mouth felt like it belonged to him. Or if he thought there was any way he was getting up these stairs without help. What the hell was the point of houses with multiple floors, anyway? “Help me up. Gotta convince them.”

A small arm hooked under his elbow, and he had to force himself not to sag. Keep going. Don’t lean too much. 

“Have to pretend to be strong.”

“Oh, Tommy,” she said again, and he realised he’d spoken aloud. Shit. He might have blushed if all his blood wasn’t already in his brain. 

“Work with me,”Ada pleaded. Right. Feet. He dragged himself up the steps, forcing himself not to lean too much on Ada. Couldn’t let the Russians see him weak. After Hughes had…he was glad that his memory of the dinner was already blurry and fading. 

“Tommy, do you have a plan?” Her voice had gone quiet now that they’d reached the top of the stairs. The Germans—the Russians—were in the next room.

“Jus’ sit there. I’ve got it. Let go now. I’m fine,” He really didn’t tell the truth very often at all anymore, he reflected in a sort of detached way as Ada gave him space. He straightened up, ignoring how the black spots in his vision got thicker and started to move. His hands were shaking. He locked his arms and threw open the door, a pathetically transparent mimicry of strength. But the truth, at this stage, was unacceptable. 

_One more job_ , he’d said, so long ago. One more job.

He found the chair opposite the members of the embassy more by luck than anything. It was frightening that he couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t get a read on them.

_“You always did look everyone you meet up and down like they were a whore, didn’t you? Made my friends damn uncomfortable, with those eyes of yours. Good for fortune telling, though,_ ” his father commented from next to the Russian translator. “I always said—“

Tommy cut him off. “Members of the British establishment and exiled White Russians are planning to rob armoured cars from a factory in Birmingham.” He’d been practicing these phrases all day. Couldn’t forget. Couldn’t mess it up. If the translator was bad, if they couldn’t understand…

“We know about the robbery. We have an informant.” They were damn smug about it too. The bile was back in his throat.

“Your informant is working for them. They want you to know about the robbery,” he choked out as someone tried to drive a shovel through his brain. Already broken. God, this was important. Focus. Listen. He couldn’t even understand what they were—Russian. They were speaking Russian.

There was a persistent buzzing in Tommy’s ears. He closed his eyes, trying to force it away. He was so hot. He hadn’t had time to take his coat off. He wished he could now. Everything was so small. The world had narrowed to this little table. He kept trying to make it bigger, Birmingham, London, but it just kept shrinking. Another stab of pain, and he had to bite back the urge to scream.

He always got so close.

Finish this. “Your informant is working to their instruction.” He was pretty sure he’d already said it, but they had to know. A rat. Church rat. Had to trap a rat. 

“Why would they want us to know?” The translator asked. So, they believed him at least. Now, all he had to do was explain. He tipped his head back, then decided that moving at all was a very bad idea when he briefly lost touch with the solidness of the world. Another gasping breath. He should onto it for when he went under.

“They want you to…they want you to stop the robbery. They want you to commit a violent act…on British soil.” _Please, you have to believe me._ All night, begging for mercy. He tried to look them in the eye, or where he approximately guessed their eyes would be. Mostly, he just saw black spots. His father winked distractingly. 

“Tommy, do you want water?” He had forgotten Ada.

Water to wash away the blood and the mud and the mountains of sin. He would need a flood. A glass for drinking was useless to him. Had to keep digging. Had to make them understand. No time for Ada. Buying them time. He continued, “A violent act on British—“ His skull was an artillery shell bursting open, spewing shrapnel. Danny Whizzbang had been right. Oh God, make it stop. No, finish it. “To force the British government to break off diplomatic relations. That’s the game.” Somehow, beyond the screaming of his head, he could still feel his nose stinging from the cocaine. Ridiculous. Such a small, unimportant sensation. No priorities. “The robbery in Birmingham is just the bait.” There. The important bit. It was out there. Tommy had said it.

He tried to breathe. He was going to be sick or pass out—or probably both—very soon if they didn’t finish this. The whole world, the parts that weren’t being eaten by blackness, had taken on a sort of weird shimmer. He knew, from copious experience, that this was what dying felt like. Hopefully, this time it wouldn’t hurt so much. Wishy washy wishfulness. 

“Why are you telling us this?” The Russian asked. His accent couldn’t be that hard to understand, but Tommy was struggling to connect the beginning of the sentence to the end.

_“Funny, same thing happened to me when I was dying,”_ his father interjected. 

“Because my family are the ones who are going to be sacrificed, if you decide to blow up the train,” Tommy said aloud. _Because I’m not like you, Dad. I care about them._

His father laughed.

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, letting the world tilt off its axis for a moment. Just a little longer.

The shovels were hacking into his head, breaking down his defences. They were already through. Somewhere, very far away, he suspected that the Russians were speaking English again, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t anymore. Romani. Maybe. 

_“Is it any wonder I’m here for you, boy, however you try to reject me?”_

“He’s Tommy Shelby. You can take his word,” Ada’s strong, familiar voice pierced through the veil of pain and confusion. Maybe she could take over the business, after Polly. That was a good idea. Good to have backup plans. Comforting to make arrangements.

“Ada—“ He had done his best to convince the Russians. Now, one final part his own plan. Trying not to die.

_“Makes a change, doesn’t it?”_ His father said snidely.

“Tommy—“ Ada’s voice. He clung to it, and to her arm. He didn’t know how she pulled him up, but she did. The world blinked out. Or he did. All he could feel were her hands, holding him steady. 

Grace had held him steady, but she was dead. 

_“Join her, then,”_ He never took his father’s advice. He didn’t want to start now, even when he made such a good argument.

“Come on, Tommy. We’re getting you to a hospital. They’ll fix you up. Get you a nice room, and you can rest and get better.” Ada was babbling. She had been so strong a minute ago. She was still strong, holding him up. Weak and blind, that was him. Dying. Not this time. He might not have a choice.

He tracked, second by second, as the last of his strength left him. His limbs were waxy. Going lame. Someone would have to shoot him. Every step down the stairs felt like plunging into the abyss. Heading down into the tunnels. He tried so hard to move up, but he was always falling.

_So close. So fucking close._

He could go no further. The thought rose up, and no other options followed on its heels. End of the road. He tugged on Ada. Had to make her understand. “Stop. Stop. Ada, Stop.”

His legs folded. She couldn’t do much to slow him. That was all right. The pain in his head might be increasing, but he’d lost the ability to tell the difference. Pain wasn’t relative. It was everything. It was a relief to be sitting down.

_“The small comforts in life.”_ his father said, lounging on the step below him, like he always had. Never sitting, always lounging.

His father wasn’t real. He was dead. Ada was real. She was the one sitting below him, gasping for breath. Choose the living. Again.

“Drive me to a hospital, Ada. If I’m not conscious when I get there, tell them I have a fractured skull, concussion and internal bleeding. I think I may have haemorrhaged.” Big words, still trying to impress them with his knowledge. Reading the dictionary. Never accept him. 

_“In my day, we didn’t have doctors.”_

Even his hallucinations of his father were useless. 

“Tommy.” Ada. She was the one he needed. She was real. She was worrying. Didn’t want to make her worry more but he couldn’t help it.

He was afraid. 

“Ada, be quick because I can’t see,” his voice was breaking.

“Okay,” She sounded panicky. He knew the feeling. But she couldn’t stop now, not if he had any chance. Always betting.

“I can’t fucking see.” She had to lead. Leave. Drag him along.

He felt her get up, and with her went his last tethers to reality. 

_“And what am I then, chopped liver?”_ Dad asked, twirling his toothpick the way John always copied. It took so little urging for Hell to come to Earth. Unless, of course, Tommy was the one who was going. 

_“Come on then, talk to me. You never did listen to your old man,”_ he said, not unkindly. Maybe if Tommy had listened, it would have been different. No Russians in the hills. Just a horse, and the open sky, seeing for miles—he couldn’t fucking see…

“Except for you, Dad.” Tommy met his eyes, blue like his own, cloudier. A link to the past, to the future that never was. A lucky break. Broken luck. He could see that. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn’t want to lose his dad’s face. In the mud he had learned there was no pride in dying.

“I can see you.”

His father brightened up immediately. “Aha, son! You’ve said the magic words! Now, all you have to do is follow me. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over. Just rest.” He reached for Tommy, who could not feel his own hands. But he knew he could follow, if he wanted to. Looking up at the stars.

Into the dark. All bets off. His father beckoned. _You always lie. I’ll never follow you. I’ll never rest. _And now his dad was fading away too until there was nothing but thick swirling darkness. Even the pain was getting further away, replaced with a kind of roaring buzz that still couldn’t drown out his father’s final words, howling gently through back the void.__

___“My offer’s not good enough for you now, but you know. Us Shelbys always find a way to win. I’ll be waiting for you.”___

__***_ _

__When Tommy next opened his eyes, weeks later, he could no longer see Arthur Shelby, Sr._  
_

__But he could feel him waiting._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and kudos are always very appreciated.
> 
> Also, apart from the two chapters I'm working on for the Lizzie fic, I don't have any Peaky stuff in the pipeline at the moment. That means that prompts are welcome! Drop them in the comments or on my tumblr at www.ast0ryintheend.tumblr.com. 
> 
> *eyes the six original projects I should also be working on* please send me prompts.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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